Crow women would wear attached to their belts a sewing awl case together with a cased flint and steel for starting fires and a whetstone. Like the other nomadic tribes of the Great Plains the Crow needed a variety of containers in which to carry their belongings, and their geometric beadwork designs were used to decorate soft skin pouches for use as containers for a variety of small objects, as well as to decorate the larger saddle bags, gun cases, cradles and tobacco pouches.